Beachwood Sparks, a folk band from Los Angeles, are the unlikely mutation
of one of noise-rock's most adventurous bands,
Further. It was Further's
bassist Brent Rademaker, and occasional Further's guitarist Chris Gunst,
who started the band, which then recruited
guitaris Dave Scher and drummer Aaron Sperske of the Lilys.
Beachwood Sparks (Subpop, 2000) is a collection of mild and
lazy country songs, played with slide guitars and mellow choruses.
The main inspiration appears to be Gran Parsons (especially the modest ballad
Desert Skies), but the band shines on tracks that recall the
psychedelic Byrds (Sister Rose, Something I Don't Recognize) and
Big Star must be the main influence on the catchy
Old Sea Miner.
The songs alternate with short, surreal sound experiments, which sometimes
(This Is What It Feels Like) are worth more than the songs.

Beachwood Sparks' debut epitomized the transition from the age of noise-rock
to the age of alt-country the same way the Grateful Dead's
Workingman's Dead marked the transition from acid-rock to country-rock.
The band's second album, Once We Were Trees (Subpop, 2001),
refines that idea in a way that is more than a mere "manifesto", in a way
that is both original and accessible. It still has as primary referents
the chirping guitars of the Byrds and the rustic melodies of the
Grateful Dead, i.e. the late hippie era.
But a lot more happens within each song.
Confusion Is Nothing New leads the pack and acts as the archetype of the
rest: languid hawaian chords soar in a sharp jingle-jangle sound,
while the singer intones a suave lullaby worthy of early Pink Floyd; and along
the way there is room for half-asleep strummed guitars,
a quasi-raga drone and tenuous dissonances in the background.
The Sun Surrounds Me boasts a sprightly refrain over a
rollicking rhythm and a trembling organ that recall
the above said Grateful Dead, and a coda of tiny noises with a
solemn tibetan mantra in the background.
Yer Selfish Ways repeats this idea with the attitude of the neighborhood
pub choir.
Melodies abound from one end to the other of the album.
You Take The Gold is so catchy to sound comic, sailing on a fast
bluegrass rhythm. A vintage piano propels tha melancholy ragtime
Hearts Mend, that recalls the drunk Bob Dylan of Rainy Day Women.
The rest of the album is not as facile, but runs the gamut of half a century
of roots-rock with as much grace and passion,
from Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde (Close Your Eyes) to
Neil Young's Harvest (The Histler).
Too bad that the instrumental Jugglers Revenge, halfway between a
bluegrass hoedown and a Grateful Dead jam, and especially the oneiric and
surreal The Good-Night Whistle did not dare more.
At the end of the album, the title-track returns to the "noisy" jingle-jangle
of the beginning with an almost epic chorus and drowns it in an instrumental
coda which is, finally, pure space-rock.
This is high-class psychedelic folk-rock. Nothing revolutionary, but an
elegant souvenir to place next to the Volebeats' voluptous country-pop and,
perhaps, the ideal antidote to 2001's doomsday events.

Tyde is most of the Beachwood Sparks, playing laid-back country-rock on
Once (Orange Sky, 2001). With Ann Do playing the role Al Kooper had
for Dylan on Blonde On Blonde,
Brent's brother Darren Rademaker pens
Strangers Again,
All My Bastard Children and Your Tattoos.
Three's Co (2006) was a poppier affair, but retained the sunny,
relaxed, "beach" atmosphere.

The Beachwood Sparks returned with
the six-song EP Make The Cowboy Robots Cry (Sub Pop, 2002),
featuring new drummer Jimmy Hey. The songs are intensely oblique, recalling
a brainier Calexico
(the seven-minute Drinkswater, Ponce de Leon Blues)
or Pearls Before Swine's psychedelic oddities
(Hibernation, Galapagos).

After the demise of the Beachwood Sparks, Dave Scher and Jimi Hey formed
All Night Radio.

Brent Rademaker formed Frausdots with vocalist Michelle Loiselle and released
Couture (Subpop, 2004).

The Beachwood Sparks returned with
The Tarnished Gold (Sub Pop, 2012)
the calm melodic country-pop of latter-day Byrds
It is telling that what was considered the Byrds' lowest point was hailed
as a "return to form" for the Beachwood Sparks.